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Family History Alphabet: U is unique

My theme for the Family History through the Alphabet is the Attributes we need as family historians: the skills, experience and talents we need to bring to our research. We’re on the slippery slope near the alphabet’s end as we look at the U attributes.

Our family tree is unique to each of us and our siblings.

U is UNIQUE: It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that while our families have universal traits, each one is unique. We also talk about our “family tree” as if it’s generic to many people whereas in fact, each individual shares a particular family ancestry only with their siblings, as unique as a snowflake. Branches of their ancestry may be shared with many others but our “tree” is unique.

U is for UNDERSTANDING: Closely related to empathy when we try to understand our families’ responses and behaviours and not judge them by 21st century values and mores.

It’s all about understanding…

Understanding our families within their time frame and the place they lived is important if we’re to reach a balanced perspective on their lives.

U is for UNIVERSALin two senses: Our ancestors were very human and their frailties and foibles are universal to human-kind. We’re universal also in our concern for their experiences and universal in our desire as family historians to know more about them.

U is for UBIQUITOUS: The traces of our families are ubiquitous from graveyards to churches to archives. It follows as night follows day that we too are ubiquitous as we hunt down those much desired clues and stories.

U is for UNIFORM: As we work through our research we try to maintain a consistent approach in the details and rigour we apply to our search, as well as how we report on family stories.

What have irises got to do with family history? They’re rhizomes.

U is not always UNIFORM: We talk about our families and family trees as if they follow a neat family structure universally uniform across each family. In fact most families have tree anomalies: children adopted out or in; same sex relationships known or hinted at; divorces; deceased spouses (often more than one); and melded families.

In short our families can be messy and so writing their story can be challenging.

Love your posts Pauleen and, in trying to think which attributes you’d come up with for Uu, immediately “understanding” jumped into my head. Most likely because all your work displays this very attribute consistently and in the most wonderful of ways. Thanks for being such a great role model.

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